


The Bobbsey Twins and the Lakeshore Mystery

by within_a_dream



Category: The Bobbsey Twins - Laura Lee Hope
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Gen, Jane Doe - Freeform, Pastiche, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26673811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/pseuds/within_a_dream
Summary: A friendly policeman pays the Bobbsey home a visit
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: Darkest Night 2020





	1. The Bobbsey Twins and the Kind Policeman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).



Mary Bobbsey was curling her hair when the knock at the door came. Luckily, she’d already changed from her housedress to something more presentable, so she was able to answer it rather than leaving it for Dinah - just how lucky she was would soon become apparent. At the door stood a policeman, holding a notepad.

"Hello, ma’am," the policeman said. "I’m Officer Taylor. I have a few questions about a woman we found near the lake yesterday."

"Mrs. Richard Bobbsey," Mary said, extending her hand for Officer Taylor to shake. She had heard about the woman. Simply horrible! "I can’t think of what I can do to help, but I’ll answer any of your questions."

The man pulled a picture from his notepad, showing it to Mary. "Do you know her?"

Mary shuddered. The woman was clearly dead, the metal slab of the morgue visible behind her head. With her eyes shut and her face unnaturally blank, Mary might not have recognized her even if she had known her in life. The dead woman’s hair struck Mary, done up in curls (so much like her own) that were coming loose and straggling out of their tight corkscrews (as Mary’s did after a long day). "I’m sorry, Officer, but I’ve never met her."

"Mamma, mamma!" Freddie Bobbsey shouted, running to join his mother at the door. "Who’s there? Is he a fireman?" he asked, seeing the policeman’s shiny badge.

"No, silly," Flossie said, following close behind him, "he’s a policeman!"

"Well, hello there, young man!" the policeman said, bending down to greet Freddie. He was endeared by the little boy, as everyone who met him was. "How are you today?"

The dead woman was forgotten as the policeman showed Freddie and Flossie his car, letting them turn on the sirens and try on his hat. But while Officer Taylor drove away with a smile, Mary could not forget the unfortunate nameless woman.

"Why was the p’liceman here, Mamma?" Flossie asked once she’d returned inside.

"He had a question about a woman who was hurt yesterday."

Mary had tried to protect her daughter from the full reality of the situation, but her sweet daughter’s eyes still widened with sorrow. "Oh no! I hope she will be all right."

"We met a woman yesterday," Freddie said (readers will remember Flossie and Freddie’s day with their father in _The Bobbsey Twins Go for a Drive_ ). "She had pretty curly hair like yours, Mamma."

There must be dozens of women in Lakeport who curled their hair like Mary. "Where did you meet her, darling?"

"She was walking and Poppa gave her a ride. But she was naughty, Poppa said, and he had to punish her." Freddie drew close to his mother. "She wanted to go to town at first, but then Poppa told her about the lake, and so we went there."

Mary absently patted Freddie’s head, lost in thought. Surely Richard could never...No. She would think no more of it.

When Richard returned home from the lumber yard, he kissed Mary as he always did. "How was your day, dear?" he asked, as he always did.

"Oh, wonderful," Mary replied, still thinking about the dead woman with her hair. "Why don’t you clean up before dinner? Dinah has made the most marvelous roast."

When they went to bed that night, Richard’s body felt imposing next to Mary’s, even sleeping. Perhaps tomorrow she would call the sheriff’s office. But really, it was nothing. They’d likely laugh at her for being so foolish. How could her Richard have anything to do with a murder, after all? Best to think no more of it.


	2. The Bobbsey Twins at the Sheriff's Office

"Oh, Flossie, look!" Freddie said, brandishing his new toy. "They gave me a fire truck!" He had just come from a conversation with the sheriff, who had invited the younger twins to his office after their conversation with his officer and a phone call from their mother. And so Bert and Nan had been left behind with Dinah, who was happy to watch them, and Flossie and Freddie set off with their mother to meet the sheriff.

And meet him they did, along with a kind woman who gave Freddy his new fire truck and talked with him while the other officers kept Flossie well-supplied with cookies and cocoa. And then it was Flossie’s turn – her mother came out to fetch her and left Freddie in the capable hands of the Lakeport police force.

Flossie ran to hide her face in her mother’s chest, struck shy by the imposing sheriff and the lady with a very smart suitjacket.

“Don’t worry, darling,” said the woman. “Here, would you like a dolly? I brought it especially for you.”

The doll was very fine indeed, with hair in beautiful blonde ringlets tied back with blue bows that matched her eyes and her dress. Flossie reached out to take her, smiling shyly at the woman. “Thank you, ma’am,” she said, earning a pat on the head from her mother.

“I’m Ms. Abbot,” the woman said, and wasn’t that a funny word! Ms., all slurred together. Flossie had never met a Ms. “Can I ask you some questions about your father?”

Flossie nodded, clutching her new doll close.

“Has he ever been cruel to you?”

Flossie shook her head emphatically. “Poppa loves me! And I’m a good girl.”

“You won’t be in trouble if he has,” Ms. Abbot said, but Flossie was telling the truth, for she was as good a little girl as any and her father loved her dearly.

Ms. Abbot wrote something down in her notepad. “He took you for a drive a few days ago?”

And what a fun drive it had been! Mr. Bobbsey was so often busy with work that his children rarely saw him, but on that day Bert and Nan had had to go to the doctor’s and Dinah had been ill, and so he took his two littlest children to the lumber mill and then on a drive around town.

“He took us to get ice cream,” Flossie said, smiling as she remembered the treat, “and then we met a lady. She was walking to the train station, and it was such a long way with her suitcase that Poppa offered her a ride. And then he said, it’s such a nice day and her train didn’t leave until evening, would she like to go to the lake, and she said yes she would, and Poppa said we must wait in the car because it was very windy and he worried we might be drownded. Freddie fussed but _I_ didn’t mind because I’m a _good_ girl.”

Mrs. Bobbsey began to hold her dear daughter tighter, and Flossie squirmed away. “And then,” Flossie said, “we heard her shouting, and then she wasn’t anymore. And when Poppa came back to the car he was alone, and he said she had been very naughty and he had had to punish her, and now she would be walking to the train station by herself. And then Freddie asked would Poppa ever make _him_ walk home and Poppa said, Freddie would never be that naughty, would he?”

“I’m going to show you some drawings, Flossie,” Ms. Abbot said. “Would you tell me if any looked like the lady you met?”

Flossie nodded, brow furrowed in concentration, and the sheriff spread a stack of pictures out on the table between them. There were all sorts of women sketched in pencil on thick cards, fat ones and thin ones and short-haired ones and long-haired ones. Flossie looked over every picture intently, for she wanted to do her best for Ms. Abbot. When she had examined every drawing closely, she slapped her hand down on one of a rather thin woman with her hair in curls.

“This one!” she said, grinning.

“And did she tell you her name?” Ms. Abbot asked.

Flossie scrunched up her face, trying to think. “Maybe Bessie, or Betsy. I’m real sorry, I don’t remember!”

“That’s quite all right,” Ms. Abbot said, “you’ve done very well, Flossie.”

And with that, the family left, although Freddie was loath to leave behind his new friends, and proclaimed as they drove that he wanted to be a ‘p’liceman’ now. Mrs. Bobbsey took the twins for ice cream, and then they returned home, and when their father wasn’t home to kiss them goodnight she told them that their Poppa was away on a trip for a while. Don’t think too poorly of dear Flossie and Freddie, but with their new toys and their ice cream treat, they barely missed him that night, nor did they notice the worry in their mother’s eyes. After a long and exciting day, the Bobbsey twins snuggled into their beds, ready for sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to telm_393 for providing a last-minute readthrough and spurring me to add the second chapter!


End file.
